This is my entry for the Weekend Breakfast Blogging event, No. 15.

I thought that this would be a good time to show how to read the tabular recipes at the same time as showing how to make these delectable bajjis using up some leftover rice and a standard can of cream style corn.

The full recipe card is at the bottom of the post. For clarity during the explanation, I have cut it in two, and brightly colored each block so that you can follow along. Refer to the full recipe card to see how everything fits together. (Also note that clicking on any image will bring up a larger image, so you can see things in greater detail.)

Starting at the top left, the blue block tells us our first step: take the ingredients to its left (i.e. two cups of cold cooked leftover rice) and spread it out on a plate; this is to make sure that it is dry, not clammy, and to separate out the grains.

Moving to the right, we see that the yellow block spans the lavender block below the blue one as well, so we know we have to complete the stuff in the lavender block before we can move on to the yellow block. The lavender block contains the maida and other dry ingredients, including some spices. These have to be mixed together well.

Now we can move on to the yellow block, which mixes the rice and the flour mixture (blue and lavender blocks) together. This is a very important step, because the flour mixture coats each grain of rice to keep them separate; if you first mixed the wet and dry ingredients together, and then tried to add the rice you would end up with a rice mush, and if you first added the rice to the wet ingredients, and then tried to mix that with the dry, you would have a terrible time trying to get rid of the lumps.

Moving on to the next block, we see that the rose block extends beyond the yellow, so we go back to the next block below the lavender, i.e. the peach block, before moving on to the burnt orange block to its right. The peach block has some preparation instructions for the vegetables, and then everything should be mixed all together with the contents of the can of cream style corn.

The white block below just contains milk, and now finally we have all the parts that are needed to proceed with the rose block, which requires us to mix everything thoroughly. Now we can move on to the next section below.

Glancing through the steps, it becomes obvious that we are making a tempering, a tadka or a popu or a talimpu. Soaking the dhals for a few minutes in water (lavender block) before adding to the tempering ensures that they will fry up to a crispy crunch under the teeth; slicing the curry leaves (blue block) will help them disperse their flavor evenly through the batter.

So, we follow the familiar path in creating the tempering: heat the oil in a small pan, add the seeds (rose block), wait for them to splutter, then add the dhal (burnt orange block), and when these start to brown, we add the curry leaves (green block)

What remains now - if we look at the full recipe card below - is to combine tempering with the flour-rice-sweetcorn-milk mixture, and then to start shallow frying spoonsful of the batter. We've found the best heat to be somewhere between medium and medium high, but each stove differs, so play around with it a little. You want the outsides to become golden brown and crispy, while the insides should be cooked through and creamy when you taste it.

We served it with homemade ginger chutney, but it would go well with most other chutneys as well.

This month's Microwave Easy Cooking event focuses on the basics. And you can't get much more basic than White Sauce, nor can you easily find something more versatile when you venture into the world of western cooking.

Update: You can see the other entries for the event in the round-up on Srivalli's Cooking 4 All Seasons.

From the standard "continental" or au gratin dishes in India that consists of some boiled vegetables with a bland white sauce poured over it and stuck under the grill, to your basic grown-up macaroni and cheese or greek moussaka, once you have mastered a white sauce, a world of options open up to you.

Now, I say "master" because many people are scared of trying to make a white sauce; they have been told how easily lumps form, how you have to watch it like a hawk and keep stirring madly all the time. But with a microwave it is easy to get a perfect white sauce every time, with very little effort.

Remember: each model of microwave is different; the times are given as a general guide, and will differ from model to model.

You start to get an inkling of how simple this is when you look at what you need: just 5 things.

Equipment:

Microwave proof dish holding at least 4 cups - I use my Pyrex measuring cup

Wire whisk - this is very important

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp butter

2-4 Tbsp flour

~2 cups milk

	Note: Click on the pictures to see (much) larger images. The first step is to place the butter into the vessel, and microwave on high for 30 seconds or until the butter is melted.
	Add two tablespoons of flour to the melted butter, and whisk it in until all the butter is absorbed. Now here you have a choice, depending on how thick you want the final product to be. If you stop adding flour now, your base (roux, pronounced roo) will look like the picture on the left. If you add two more tablespoons of flour, it will look like the picture on the right. Either way, you proceed the same from here on.
	You now need to add the milk; slowly. Start with roughly four tablespoons of milk, and start mixing slowly. Once all the liquid has been absorbed, add a little more this time. Keep whisking gently, and you should end up with a pliable mass. Now you can add more milk in a stream while whisking, until the volume in the vessel is about 1 cup, and everything is mixed thoroughly without lumps.
	Place the vessel back in the microwave and turn it on high for about 3 minutes. When the time is up, look at the contents: it should look as in the picture on the left i.e. there should be a semi-solid rim of slightly darker yellow, and some portion of more liquid, whiter sauce in the center. If it does not look like that yet, put it back in the microwave for another 90 seconds at a time. Keep checking and cooking for another 90 seconds until it starts to resemble the picture. Once it reaches that stage, whisk it, breaking up the semi-solid rim and mixing through the liquid part; the result will look like the picture on the right.
	Now add the rest of the milk, slowly as above, i.e. first a very small quantity, and once you've whisked that in, a bit more, and finally the whole lot. You will now have a liquid with some substance, about the consistency of good dosa batter. Place this back in the microwave, for 3 minutes on high. Check and stir, then return to the microwave for 3 minutes more; after this do 90 seconds at a time, until the sauce has thickened.

What did I use this particular white sauce for, I hear you ask? I made a quick supper dish of Spinach and Pasta Bake.

I sweated a chopped onion and a slit green chilli in oil in a kadhai after I had spluttered some mustard seeds, and when they became translucent, I added chopped spinach that had been thawed from frozen and squeezed dry. Once the spinach was heated through, and had picked up the flavors from the kadhai, I added some homemade tomato sauce. (You can use your favorite recipe, or just use some bottled pasta sauce. This is also the time to add your favorite veggie protein like "cooked" Nutrella chunks if you want to make the meal more substantial).

I mixed in two cups cooked macaroni, and after tossing it through, I scooped in the white sauce and mixed well. After checking and adjusting the seasoning, I stirred in a luscious amount of cheddar cheese, and let the ooey-gooey goodness melt in there. You can serve it at this point or (as I did) place it in an oven-proof dish (e.g. corningware), sprinkle some more cheese on top, followed by some breadcrumbs, and place it under the broiler to get a lovely crisp crust.

Are you any more decisive than me?

I brought these three ostrich eggs back with me from South Africa, and I have always been fascinated by their texture.

I took some pictures of them about three years ago, and when the Click! event was announced, I thought I would pick one of those. But in the meantime I got a new camera, and I wanted to play around with the eggs.

Big mistake. I messed around with it and took far too many pictures, and even after discarding the majority of them, I can't decide which one to submit - and remember, the event allows only one entry per person.

So, perhaps you can help me decide. (In the spirit of play, I am also including a couple of just-for-fun, whimsical pictures.)

Candidate 1

Candidate 2

Candidate 3

Candidate 4

Candidate 5

Candidate 6

See? I told you so! Here we are with summer still a warm memory, and already the fresh peaches are almost $5.00 a pound.

Frozen peaches are a better alternative than canned, because to my palate the canning process alters something fundamentally in the taste of the peaches. Don't get me wrong: canned peaches are good for some things like Curry Coronation Couscous Salad (remind me to give you the recipe for that sometime), but when you want that fresh peach taste sans the fresh peaches, frozen is the only way to go.

This week-end a cake was baked for Nini's birthday: a lovely bundt cake whose recipe will soon follow. But it is not the kind of cake that requires icing - in fact, it is the kind of cake that should not be iced.

In honor of the festive occasion we did however top individual slices with whipped cream and peaches.

To prepare the pieces, the frozen wedges were places on a plate and sprinkled (lightly - or not so lightly if you prefer) with sugar. As they defrosted and macerated at the same time, a lovely light syrup formed on the plate. The wedges were then sliced into half-inch slices, and the syrup was drizzled directly onto the naked cake slices.

We whipped a cup of cream with two tablespoons of confectioners sugar and an eighth of a teaspoon of orange essence; when forming stiff peaks, we folded in some orange zest. (The cake itself had lots of orange zest and a little orange essence. The flavors go remarkably well with the fresh peaches)

Then we piped whimsical dollops of cream onto the cake after dotting it with the peaches. I can tell you that the cake didn't last very long, and that Angel Face ended up with cream on her face and crumbs on her shirt!

I am submitting this to AFAM Peaches, hosted this month by Mansi.

PS: There is a special reason why we celebrate Nini's birthday with peaches. In the southern hemisphere, October is spring time; while growing up our father used to say that peach blossoms were Nini's birthday flower, because the two huge peach trees in the backyard would be covered in blossoms when she had her birthday.

We commemorated his 25th death anniversary last month, and I think it is memories like this that keeps him alive for us.

Jugalbandi's Jai and Bee created a food blogging photo competition event extravaganza:

I needed a lot of help to decide which picture to submit, and I thank you all for your input. Taking the various opinions into account, and my personal leaning, I finally decided on candidate six.

But first I needed to post this little fella for Sandeepa (and everyone else who liked him). Yes, both caps belonged to Angel Face (she's just recently outgrown them), and I loved the touch of whimsy. It is a miracle that this picture got taken at all though, because my camera's focus markings were superimposed on the egg in such a way when looking through the lens that the lower semi-circle and the cross-shaped center appeared to be a smiley face on the egg. I was giggling so hard I couldn't keep the camera still, even with a tripod!

Finally, here is my entry for the event. I took it with my Olympus eVolt e-500 with Zuiko 14-45mm lens 1:3.5-5.6

No other filters apart from the UV filter which is fitted on all my lenses for purely protective purposes. In fact, I won't take a new lens out of the box before I have purchased a UV filter for it, and the very first thing I do upon opening the lens is fitting the filter. If the filter gets scratched, it costs a couple of bucks to replace; if the lens gets scratched it is several hundred dollars down the drain.

Saffron Trail's Nandita created an event which is one of the highlights of each month for me: The Weekend Breakfast Blogging (WBB) event. This month it is being hosted by Kanchana from Married to a Desi, and the theme for the sixteenth WBB is Omelettes.

I've had my share of omelettes in restaurants: some good, some so-so, some horrible. A well-made omelette is a thing to treasure, and it evokes a fervor among its devotees. A bad one is not worthy of the name.

Now, in many houses like ours people have started eating eggs while remaining veg; some will eat the egg when recognizably an egg (boiled, fried, omelette, quiche), while others will only eat it when unrecognizably inside something (pasta, cake etc). My husband is the latter - he cannot stand the smell or taste of egg, and so won't even eat the fried rice in Chinese restaurants in the US because of the scrambled egg they add.

For the rest of us, egg has proved to be an additional source of protein and something which widens our options on the menu when we eat out. When cooking an egg dish at home, we take care to prepare something separately for my husband.

I learned how to make the best omelettes in the world from my mother.

Now that might sound immodest, so be sure that I am not claiming the ones that I make are the best, just that I know what the technique is that is employed in making the best omelettes in the world :-)

• Establish how hungry each person is, and based on that take either two or three eggs per person (so either four or six eggs for two people).


• Take out two bowls. Take a teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice, and swirl it around the larger bowl, then rinse thoroughly with water and dry with a paper towel; this gets rid of any residual oil that might be in the bowl.


• Separate the eggs, putting the whites in the bowl you prepared above, and the yolks in the other bowl.


• Whisk the egg whites first, having made sure that your whisk(s) are also free of any residual oil. It is ready when the whites form soft peaks that bend back on themselves.


• Now whisk the yolks until well-combined; you can do this with a fork.


• Get your frying pan ready: heat it with a teaspoon of oil or butter.


• Then fold in the yolks into the whites, combining well but not overworking it.


• Important: Do NOT add salt to this mixture. Salt in the egg will cause it to draw water while cooking, and you will end up with tough stringy egg-protein and grey water - not appealing at all.


• Ladle enough mixture onto the pan to cover the bottom, and after twenty seconds or so start to lightly jiggle/shake the pan. The omelette will start to come loose and slip around a little.


• From here on there are two options to complete the omelette:
  
  • The traditional way is to next score a line through the center of the omelette with your spatula, then flip over one half onto the other along the line (perhaps sprinkling some grated sharp cheddar first) and then sliding it onto a plate to be served.
    The result is what you see in the picture on the right - a fluffy soufflé of an omelette.
  
  
  • Personally, I like my eggs more well done (and Angel Face should not eat it runny until she is twelve at least), so for ours I slip the whole omelette flat onto a plate, then turn the pan upside down over the plate.
    With the plate pressed to the pan, I flip the whole thing over so that the omelette has been turned over, unbroken.
    Cook for a little bit on the other side until the egg is set through.
    Now sprinkle cheese and fold over, sliding onto a plate to serve.
    The main picture at the top of this entry shows the appearance when made in this manner.
  
  

I have to issue a warning though: after you have made omelettes this way, your palate might be spoilt for any other type, so proceed at your own risk.